


Change, Hope, and Much-Needed Comfort

by SwoodMaxProductions



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [15]
Category: Dead Cells (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Character Death Fix, Cry Into Chest, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Feel-good, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Men Crying, Muteness, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Poor blobby boi needs hugs, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, The Collector is a nervous wreck, Time Loop, Time Travel, Touch-Starved, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, so does the Collector
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26822893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwoodMaxProductions/pseuds/SwoodMaxProductions
Summary: (Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt: Cry Into Chest)After going to the secret *SPOILER*, fighting the *SPOILER* and learning *SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!* the Beheaded is about to break.His existential crisis is interrupted, however, by a concerned familiar face...
Relationships: The Beheaded & the Collector, The Beheaded & the Tutorial Knight
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1500902
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Change, Hope, and Much-Needed Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, that last fic was super fucked up... so now it’s fluff time. Enjoy.

His whole world was crumbling. It was him. He was the monster all along.

The Beheaded sat curled up in the corner of his cell. For the first time, he was reluctant to leave. All of his efforts, every wound, every death… it was for nothing. Were his efforts even his? Was anything his? Was he really the same monster to blame for everything that had happened, or was he just a figment of a demented king’s imagination? Did he even truly exist?

For the first time, the Beheaded didn’t want to go on. It seemed every time he made a run, something worse happened. He’d gone into the Astrolab and Observatory out of curiosity the first time. The second, he… his body had been mauled by the Hand of the King… and the King’s body was right there… he tried to warn the Collector, but… the King… Oh, god. He couldn’t stop him. He watched the Collector die. And  _ he _ had killed him.

He’d barely scraped through his duel with the completed King, solidifying his existence and restarting the time loop, but… he couldn’t. If everything was only going to get worse, why try? Besides, even if the loop was fully reset, he didn’t think he could go into the Havens again without breaking down at the sight of the Collector— if he’d been spared with the reset at all…

The Beheaded wanted what he couldn’t have.

He wanted to die.

“Oh!”

The homunculus’s fireball head shot up at the sound, a sound he’d expected to never hear again.

“Aren’t you the headless fellow that’s been getting around?”

Standing before him was the same knight that had greeted him so many runs ago. The same knight he’d found dead.

“...Why are you looking at me like that?”

She was real. She wasn’t just an echo, or a glitch in time. Maybe his duel with the King… had changed something…?

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head “no”.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, dropping to one knee at his side.

Even if he could speak, the Beheaded didn’t think he had it in him to put his situation into words. Instead he instinctively reached out to her. The knight understood. She leaned forward and hugged him.

She was warm and solid and reassuring, grounding his racing mind in the embrace of another creature. He trembled uncontrollably as he silently sobbed into her shoulder, his eldritch flames licking harmlessly over her armor and cheek.

“Hey… hey, it’s alright…” she said gently.

She rubbed soothing circles into the Beheaded’s back, murmuring comforting words to him as he shook like a leaf and clung to her for dear life. All his existential horror slowly melted away into just the feeling of being held, and he sank bonelessly into her arms. 

“It must be a lot to take in… c’mon, I can take you back to the Havens with me.”

The Beheaded pulled away, shaking his head. The Collector...

“...Why not…?”

Realizing he had no way to explain, he slowly nodded.

“...Oh. So… you will?”

Another nod.

The kind knight helped him up and began leading him to the Havens. All the while, the Beheaded was trying to brace himself for the inevitable…

But he couldn’t.

When that door opened and that semi-misshapen tower of robes turned toward him, he faltered. He fell to his knees, paralyzed by the guilt, the  _ memories— _

And pulled out of them by the sensation of thin, leathery hands on his shoulders. He opened his eye, which he hadn’t realized he’d been squeezing shut. The Collector was crouched down on his haunches, taking special care to be at eye level with him.

“...Prisoner…?”

The Beheaded froze. He couldn’t. He’d seen him finally snap, been attacked by him.  _ Killed _ him. But he still couldn’t look away from the Collector.

“The Time Keeper told me everything,” he whispered.

The Beheaded curled into himself, the pit of despair inside him deepening. But there was no ill will in the alchemist’s voice. His hands stayed on the homunculus’s shoulders.

“And I believe I need to thank you.”

The Beheaded looked at him and tilted his fiery head in confusion.

“You see,” the Collector rasped, “your defeat of the completed King prevented him from destroying the time loop. By resetting the loop… you saved my life.”

His voice was starting to tremble.

“I… know you must be going through hell… I… need to tell you something.”

The Collector sighed, a hoarse, rasping sound. He removed his hands from the Beheaded’s shoulders and folded them on his lap, trying to find the words to describe what needed to be said.

“I… I created you. I… was once the Royal Alchemist, a long time ago... I was ordered to… to… grant… the King… immortality… ghh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He’d never seen the Collector like this. Was he… crying?

“A-anyway— When… when you escaped… I… It was… relieving. Even if I was, er, almost executed for it…”

The Collector nervously rubbed at the manacles on his wrists. Which made sense. The Beheaded had never really questioned them, given the man’s skull pauldrons and his own tendency to be rather dense. They weren’t just gothic accessories, they had once kept the poor Collector in chains...

“I… didn’t tell you. I thought that perhaps… we could both start over. Without  _ him… _ ”

That would also explain the cowl, and his seeming aversion to his own face…

“What I’m trying to say is… you are not him. You are _ nothing  _ like him. You were created from him, but you are the exact opposite of him. And… I’m glad…”

A choking whimper that could no longer be contained betrayed that the Collector was indeed crying. God, if just  _ talking _ about the King stressed him out, the Beheaded shuddered to imagine what his life had been like.

The Beheaded lunged forward into a hug, accidentally knocking the Collector over with a startled yelp.

“Y-you, er…!”

Though at first he was taken by surprise and didn’t quite know how to react, the Collector gradually and awkwardly returned the embrace. The Beheaded had needed the reassurance more than anything else in the world. And the Collector needed the hug. After all the stress, the psychological scarring from the King, the screams of the Malaise-stricken volunteers he’d failed to save… he DESPERATELY needed a hug.

“You are yourself,” the Collector murmured, “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

They melted into each other’s arms, finally getting the comfort and affection they’d both been starved of. The usual tension in the Collector’s body gradually began to ease. Though there was still a way to go before everyone was safe, hope was within their grasp. The knight, happily watching the moment, smiled at the cuddly mess of gangly limbs.

The Beheaded couldn’t speak.

But even if he could, he didn’t need to.

Comfort was a universal language.


End file.
